Wireless networking has opened up a variety of doors to network connectivity. Today, through a combination of networking software and hardware, users are able to access network resources from virtually any location. In fact, in many instances users are able to select from a variety of communication media at any point in time. A communication medium, as used herein, refers to the physical as well as logical (protocol) means by which a user's computer communicates over a network. Examples of communication media include: cellular wireless wide area networks, personal area networks (e.g., Bluetooth), wireless local area networks (e.g., 802.11 (a/b/g)), wired local area networks, and wired wide area networks. Simultaneous availability of multiple communication media arises, for example, within an office environment that supports wireless local area network, wired local area network, wireless wide area network, and wired wide area network connectivity.
The presence of multiple networks potentially reachable via a variety of technologies (e.g., wireless local area networks, wireless wide area networks, hardwired local and wide area networks, personal computer area networks, etc.) introduces a need for network selection capabilities on a network-connectable computing device. In known computing systems, in particular computer systems executing WINDOWS XP, automated network selection is currently based on an order of identified networks in a preference list for a particular communications media—wireless LAN. In the preference list-based automated selection approach, for each network, the sole question when considering a current list entry is, “Can the computing device currently connect to the identified network?” If the answer is yes, then a connection is established. If the answer is no, then the next entry within the preference list is used (until a network connection is established). However, the preference list approach provides a somewhat limited degree of flexibility in configuring a computing device to automatically connect to a network.